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Wright: ‘we’ve got a great chance to get to Wembley’

Caltex Socceroos defender Bailey Wright says Bristol City’s belief of reaching the Carabao Cup final hasn’t been dented despite their heart-breaking late loss to Manchester City in the semi-final first leg.

The Robins looked on track to leave Etihad Stadium with a 1-1 draw only for Sergio Aguero to grab a winner for the runaway EPL leaders in stoppage-time.

It means Bristol will need to find a way to be the first team domestically this season to beat Pep Guardiola’s men if they are to reach the Wembley final.

“We’ve always had belief, we’ve knocked out four (premier league) sides already to get to this stage. If that doesn’t give you belief then I don’t know what does,” Wright told beIN Sports post game.

“After that performance I think we’ll have even more belief. The boys have been superb and dug in and give it everything.

“We’re still in this. We feel we’ve got a great chance to progress. It’s going to be hard but it’s been hard getting here, that’s what we enjoy.”

Given City’s imperious form this season, not many gave the Championship outfit a chance of pulling off a shock in Manchester.

But they led 1-0 at the break through Bobby Reid’s penalty, before Kevin De Bruyne hit back for the hosts 10 minutes into the second half.

Bristol’s dogged defence, led by skipper Wright, repelled everything City threw at them until Aguero’s late intervention.

“They are a class team…[but] we took the game to them,” Wright said.

“I thought we might have done enough there but just at the end we switched off a little bit and it cost us a goal.

“But the positive is it’s only the halfway mark for us. We’ll take a lot of confidence from that and look forward to the next tie.”

The second leg at Ashton Gate will be played in two weeks’ time on Wednesday, January 24 (AEDT).